Tennis Week Announces Focus on Web and Digital Media

New York, NY — Tennis Week announced today a shift in focus to its online web site www.tennisweek.com and its video distribution platform while placing the brand’s print edition on hiatus through 2009. The strategic restructuring, which will not include any layoffs of the media outlets staff, reflects the shifting media and marketing landscape and plays to the brand’s core audience, a new generation of tennis fans, players and devotees looking for the immediacy of 24/7 media coverage and rich video content.

“This is a timely evolution of the Tennis Week brand and a shift in format based on reader and viewer demand,” said Brandusa Niro, Senior VP of IMG Publishing. “We certainly respect the heritage of the Tennis Week print edition, but covering the game these days requires immediacy and urgency, and we must address the new media habits of tennis fans. They want instant news, they want video, and they want content that moves as fast as the game itself”.

Tennis Week, which is published by IMG Publishing, a division of international sports, entertainment and media company IMG has also recently inked content distribution deals with MSN in the US and Japan, Fox Sports and other outlets. These outlets will syndicate tennisweek.com news and other video content across a network of global video platforms.

“If your beat is seasonal gardens, a magazine printed 6-8 times a year can do the job. But for the fast news cycle of sports, the digital space is the answer,” said Lee Rosenbaum, Vice President of IMG Publishing. “Both the consumer and advertising tennis marketplace made this decision for us—and it’s one we embrace as having considerable upside. And as a company so committed to tennis, content and production, IMG is uniquely positioned to really grow tennisweek.com in scope, scale and quality”.

IMG Publishing acquired Tennis Week in December of 2006 and has seen its website numbers grow significantly during its stewardship of the outlet. Both uniques and page views are up almost 50% February 2009 compared with a year earlier.

“Endemic and non endemic advertisers looking to leverage the excitement and spirit of sports are largely focused on online activations, “said Rosenbaum. “It’s in the digital and video format that we can best combine action with brand communication, players with product, immediacy and timeliness with marketing opportunity. As for Tennis Week in print, we plan to leverage its strong brand heritage through specialty print products at events and at retail, and we are currently examining such opportunities.”